The Raid
by MikhailN
Summary: Rated T for slightly disturbing content
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I do not own Gunslinger Girl or its characters, which were taken from the manga series of the same name, all of which are the property of their creator, Yu Aida._

**The Hostage**

Daniela walked down the corridor silently, much like how a cat stalks a mouse. The MP7 in her hands had just arrived yesterday and almost immediately she had received a short course in handling it from Walther. Now she was carefully making her way towards the target room where a hostage was being held. At the same time, Walther was right behind her, dressed all in black and wearing his black equipment vest. He was surprisingly agile and resembled a black jaguar hunting a small animal

Daniela stopped at one of the doors along the corridor. Yes, this was the room marked out on the map. She glanced at the hinges, decided which way the door would open and took up her position. Then, she grasped the doorknob and flung open the door to start the attack.

As she moved into the room, she began to identify targets. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the room was a short-haired woman who was clearly the "hostage." Behind her and on her right were plywood targets with armed men wearing ski masks drawn on them. Those were clearly the "bad guys." Also, in the far corner of the room Daniela spotted another "bad guy" and decided that these three would be shot. She made these cold calculations in a split second as she passed through the doorway and then shifted to its left to clear it for Walther to enter. Pressing the stock into her shoulder, she swung her MP7 up and squeezed two rounds over the head of the "hostage" and onto the plywood behind. Twisting her waist a little, she aimed at the target to the right of the "hostage," fired two rounds into it and proceeded to do the same for the target in the far corner of the room.

"Cease fire and unload," bellowed Walther. He waited for Daniela to remove the magazine and clear the round from the chamber before showing her the timing on the small black stopwatch he was holding in his hand. "You took seven seconds to clear the room. That's too long. We'll have to run it again."

"NO!" shrieked Priscilla. She had been sitting in the chair all this while and was quite hysterical. "You told me that I was going to help Daniela train and next thing I know there're bullets flying around me. I could have died!"

"Well, please accept my apologies and let me buy you lunch. After you clean yourself up that is," said Walther, noting the wet patch at her groin. At that Priscilla stormed out of the room and Walther couldn't help but have a little laugh at someone else's expense. He turned to Daniela and was surprised to see her looking absolutely furious. "Daniela, you're not thinking of attacking Priscilla, are you?" Daniela shook her head. "It's the conditioning..."

"Anyway, let's get down to the serious stuff." Walther pulled the chair over and sat down. "It takes about two seconds for a person to take an aimed shot. Seven seconds means that the bad guys would have shot at you and if they get lucky, well..." Walther pointed at his eye and the unsaid message was clear. "You need to deliver fast and accurate shots. I notice you raise your gun and then lower your head to the gun in two separate motions. That's good for accurate shooting but not for fast shooting. Try this." He reached over and retracted the MP7's stock. "Look at where you want to shoot and bring the sights up to your eye. When you need to shift your aim, use your knees, ankles and feet to move your whole body." Walther got up and walked over to the plywood target in the far corner.

"What made you decide that this one should die?" asked Walther as he tapped the target.

Daniela thought for a moment, and then replied: "He was wearing a ski mask..."

Walther searched his equipment vest and pulled out his old balaclava. Pulling it over his head, he said: "When you assess a target, look at his hands and decide whether to shoot or not. That target wasn't armed, so think about it before you decide to shoot me because I look like a bad guy. Now pick up the cartridges, reload your magazines and run this yourself." Walther then went to adjust the targets as Daniela busied herself picking up cartridges.

A few minutes later found Daniela, gun in hand, quietly moving towards the room again. Just like before, she stopped, threw open the door and started the attack. This time, the "hostage" was dressed in black from head to toe, complete with a ski mask and dark glasses and was sitting extremely still on the chair, almost like a mannequin. Daniela just glanced at the "hostage's" hands, saw that there were no weapons and looked at the plywood targets. There was one behind the "hostage", one on the right and one in the far corner, just like before. However, there was a difference that was not lost on Daniela. She noticed that the one in the far corner was pointing his rifle at her while the one was pointing his rifle towards the ground, clearly not ready to shoot. Also, the target one the right had a handgun in his shoulder holster but his hands were empty and by his side. Daniela prioritized her targets in less than a second and reacted accordingly. Clearing the doorway, she looked at the target in the far corner, raised the sights to her eye and fired off two rounds. Then, she used her ankles and knees to shift her aim to the target behind the "hostage" and squeezed off another two rounds. Finally, she took a step towards the target on her right and cried: "Hands up!"

"Excellent," exclaimed Walther as he stopped the stopwatch and took off his balaclava and dark glasses. "Three seconds. That's a great improvement. Pack up and take the rest of the day off."

Outside, Jean was waiting for him. "Let's see how capable you are," he said as he passed Walther a slip of paper with a room number scrawled on it. It was an interrogation room.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Prisoner**

Earlier, Walther had changed into something more comfortable and walked into the room. He took one look at the prisoner through the one-way screen and strode off to see Doctor Bianchi. Now, he returned with a briefcase and went to see the prisoner.

The prisoner was tied to a chair and was facing a desk where his interrogator would sit. Walther took his place behind the desk and examined his subject more closely. His right knee had been bashed in by a hammer and the only reason why his left knee had been spared was because his left leg was crudely amputated just above the knee by what looked like – and very well could be – a blunt hacksaw. His hands were tied to the arms of the chair and from what Walther could see, there wasn't much left of his fingernails. On top of that, his right arm was bent at a weird angle and there was a bone sticking out. He was barely recognizable as a human being anymore.

"Good afternoon," called Walther.

The man lifted his bowed head and glared at him. Walther could see that Jean really gave him a good black eye. In fact, the man looked like he was crying, until Walther realized that the fluid trickling down the man's left cheek was not tears but vitreous humour. In his remaining eye, Walther saw determination. This man was wholly dedicated to his cause and seeing that there was no way out for him, was determined to resist his captors to the very end. No wonder Jean had trouble getting him to talk.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Walther and I was told that you're not very good at conversation. That's why I'm here to try and understand you better." Walther was talking in a casual tone, as though seeing torture victims was part and parcel of life. Now he reached for his briefcase and took out a hypodermic needle and a vial. Filling the syringe with the contents of the vial, Walther saw the man eyeing the needle warily. "Don't worry, this isn't sodium thiopental. This is Italy, not Russia." He slid the empty vial across the table. " And I'm an economist, not a chemist. The label on the vial reads 'morphine sulphate' and with this, I hope we can do a little err... barter trade. Are you feeling cold? Your brain's trying to cope with all the pain and right now, it's shutting down a lot of your organs. I hardly think it's pleasant." Walther watched in silence as he saw that determined look begin to give way to temptation. After a minute, a hoarse whisper escaped the man's lips. "Book-keeper," was what he said. Walther walked over, jabbed the needle into the man's arm and pressed the plunger. "That's fifteen minutes of relief. After that, let's barter some more, ok?"

As he left the room, Walther saw Jean sitting behind the one-way screen. Walther flipped him The Finger as he walked off to get more morphine. Two hours and eight vials later the man expired, but not before he revealed everything he knew.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Book-keeper**

This looked like a fairly straightforward mission. They had to attack the hotel room where one of Padania's book-keepers was staying, capture him and escort him outside where a few Agency guys would be waiting in a car. There were three guards expected and if they couldn't get him alive, then they were to recover his documents. Walther got together with Daniela and drew up a simple plan. To avoid cross-fire, they divided the room into half and Daniela would clear the left half while Walther would take the right. After familiarizing themselves with the photo of the book-keeper, they went out for operational zeroing.

At the range, Walther took out his new H&K 416 and 417 that arrived together with Daniela's MP7. Though he zeroed both rifles, tonight he would use the 416 with a ten inch long barrel and sling. Because the room was expected to be dimly-lit, he broke a glow stick and dabbed the luminescent chemical onto the sights of the MP7 and 416. Crude, but effective. After that they packed their equipment into a luggage case and set off.

It was late in the evening when Walther and Daniela crossed the hotel lobby with their luggage and got into an empty lift. In the lift, Walther quickly opened the luggage and they started to equip themselves. On top of their weapons, Walther had brought along their H&K USPs with suppressors, just in case a silenced weapon was needed. As they stuffed their pistols into their pockets Walther made a mental note to check when those holsters he had ordered would arrive.

The lift door opened and they got out into the quiet corridor. It was very fortunate that there was no one around, for the Agency's protocol dictated that if anyone happened to see a gun-toting teenage girl walk out of the lift in a T-shirt and jeans followed by a similarly dressed young man with an assault rifle slung across his body, then that person must die and Walther didn't like that kind of thing to happen. The room was easy to locate with the room number nailed prominently on the door in guilt-edged numbers. Leaving the luggage case nearby, they examined the door. The doorknob was on the right from the hinges it was obvious that the door would open inwards. Walther turned to look at Daniela and saw that she had positioned herself right beside the doorframe closest to the doorknob, feet slightly bent and with the MP7 firmly gripped in her hands. She was clearly ready to do her part once Walther had opened the door. As he worked on the electronic lock on the door, he was reminded of his time in the Border Guard. All those clandestine operations he conducted were primarily to protect the nameless, faceless, innocent people out there. Every time he pulled off a successful mission he would remind himself of these people, blissfully unaware that their lives were extended because his team conducted a high-risk arrest. Now, though he was in a different country and organization, he was doing the very same thing that he had been doing for years. Well, innocent people were the same, no matter which country you went to. There was a soft click and he turned to Daniela. "Remember you training and you'll do fine," he whispered as his right hand moved to hold the 416 firmly by the pistol grip. Daniela gave a little nod. So Walther opened the door with his left hand and took a step back as Daniela moved in.

She entered and moved to the left to clear the doorway. Fortunately the lighting in the room was as dim as the lighting in the corridor so it didn't take much time to get used to the darkness. In her half of the room, there were two people. One was facing her and holding a Beretta sub-machine gun in his hand while the other was sitting on a sofa with his back facing her. Instinctively, she faced the man facing her, lined up the luminscent sights with his face and squeezed off two rounds. They passed just below his chin and hit his neck, decapitating him.

Close behind her was Walther. He entered and moved to the right of the doorway and saw one man in his half of the room. He was just standing there with another Beretta sub-machine gun in his hand, trying to make sense of the situation. Walther reacted by bringing his 416 up and pushing it as far as his sling would allow him. Lining up the glowing sights on the man's nose, he squeezed off two rounds. Both rounds landed just between the nose and upper lip, killing him instantly. As his body fell, Daniela fired off a short burst. The man on the sofa had turned around with a pistol and promptly took five rounds to the face.

"Is the book-keeper here?" Walther turned to scan the rest of the room for their objective but couldn't see anywhere else where a person could hide.

At that point he heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked behind him. He spun around and saw that about a foot away was the wall. Or was it? To his horror he realized that in the darkness and chaos he had missed a door and in close quarter fighting it was this kind of mistake that cost lives. Daniela heard the sound too and without warning, she dashed across the room and threw herself in between the door and Walther.

Instinctively, Walther tackled her and pinned her to the ground just as gunfire erupted around them. As he held her down, he realized that Daniela had emptied her magazine into the door just as the person on the other side fired his weapon at them. Two lines of bullet-holes peforated the door, one clearly from the MP7 going from left to right while the other was perpendicular to the floor. To Walther it was clear that the latter would have started by hitting Daniela in the head and since Daniela was about half a head shorter than him, she could have been left without a handler if she didn't get hit in the eye. Then a horrible gurgling sound reached his ears, one that he never really got used to even after all these years. Pushing himself off Daniela, he threw open the door and bouncing on the balls of his feet, entered the room. It was a smaller room that was furnished with a bed and table. On the table there were files and a laptop, obviously belonging to the book-keeper who was now lying spread-eagled on the floor. Satisfied that there was no one else in the room, Walther trained his 416 at the book-keeper though that gesture was redundant. He was hit in the chest by 4.6mm hollow point rounds and was struggling to breathe as blood flooded his lungs. Walther kicked away the Israeli sub-machine gun in his hands just as the man finally succumbed, drowning in his own blood.

Stepping outside, Walther saw Daniela trying to sit up. Glaring at her, he muttered: "Is it that fun to get shot?"

"What are you talking about? I'm supposed to live to protect and fight for you. You know that," Daniela replied, not catching what Walther was trying to say.

"Live, fight and protect, not die trying," yelled Walther, pointing at the door. "If he got lucky, I won't need to scold you."

"Then I'll live for the moment when I have to die fighting and protecting you! Anyway I'm nearly invincible, so you'll have lots of time to yell at me like that," retorted Daniela.

Walther was at a loss for words. It was times like these that he was really tempted to dope her until she turned into a mindless machine. Fortunately these moments didn't last long. "Stupid drugs..." Walther muttered to himself

What Daniela did next was completely unexpected. She slipped out the magazine from her MP7 and flung it at Walther, hitting him in the face. "You insensitive fool!" she screamed at him. Then she picked herself up and ran for the bathroom.

Walther gave a huge sigh. She really was a handful. Stepping over the dead bodies, he slipped out his USP and went to the door. Fitting a sliencer, he took a peek outside into the dim corridor. Clearly the Italians knew what gunfire sounded like and knew better than to go outside and investigate. Very wise, Walther thought to himself. He dragged his luggage case into the room and tossed their equipment and the book-keeper's files and laptop into it. Since the book-keeper was in no state to give information, this would have to suffice. The sounds of retching and running water was coming from the bathroom and was slightly amused. It had to take a twisted mind to put guns into the hands of little girls and this bit of programming had to be a product of that twisted mind, though if you looked at it from a pragmatic point of view it really stopped her from attacking him every time she lost her temper.

They were silent as they took the lift down to the lobby. Walther broke the silence: "Next time, don't do anything rash. After all, I can take care of myself."

"I'm not too sure about you being able to take care of yourself, but I won't do anything rash," was her reply and Walther gave a little sigh. What a complicated girl she was.


End file.
